Melissa McCue-McGrath, gets humped way more in her line of work than she thought would be possible. In addition to training six dogs in Maine to find invasive species for a proof of concept study (Texas Tech/Virginia Tech), she has competed in canine disc dogs, and grew up in what she affectionately calls, "an accidental sled dog family" in rural Maine. She now is a professional dog trainer and behavior consultant (canine) in southern, less rural, Maine. She earned her B.S. of Psychology from Lake Erie College in 2003. Shortly after, she moved to Boston and used that expertise to start a career in dog training, and pen her first book, “Considerations for the City Dog“ (2015). Melissa served as the co-Training Director of New England Dog Training Club (the oldest AKC Obedience club in the country) for 11 years before moving to rural Maine where she is a behavior consultant and dog trainer through the Animal Welfare Society in Kennebunk, Maine. Melissa has most recently been invited to speak about urban dogs and training challenges at Winchester University in England (PACTDog X Conference, 2023). In addition, she will be presenting for the Grisha Stewart Academy in 2025, has presented for the Animal Behavior Society (2022), Raising Canine, Pet Professional Guild, Tufts University, the NE Federation of Humane Societies, and more. She can be heard on her podcast, BewilderBeasts, a 100+ episode podcast all about the ways animals intersect at humanity, including how bees were trained to find bombs in Croatia; how a snake named Emily Spinach gave Alice Roosevelt some credit as a rebel-rousing feminist during her father's presidency; the time a parrot was kicked out of a presidential funeral for swearing too much; dogs who find historical human remains, solving decades and centuries old cold cases, and more. Melissa is ever-fascinated by the human-animal bond and loves teaching people about how very similar we are to the pets who live in our homes. From kid presentations, to presenting at the Boston Museum of Science, Melissa's own curiosity makes her an engaging, entertaining, and informative educator for people and animals alike.